It took us a few days to reach the valley by the river. Standing on the hill, there was indeed a strange fog covering the valley, the road disappearing just as the altitude descended.

“This fog is thicker than anticipated,” Alira commented.

“Following the road was the plan anyway,” I said. “We were to make our way to the main village in the valley and see if anyone was left.”

“So how do we split the Dinari if we clear the valley?” Malvina asked.

“We have a saying: 'Don’t count your chickens before they hatch',” I said, looking disapprovingly at Malvina.

“You defeated Tara, and I’ve seen her kill a manticore like it was nothing,” her gaze held such unwavering trust that it made me feel a little guilty.

“Listen, I've been here for a month already, and to be honest, I'm still figuring things out. Dealing with the necromancers? I just got really lucky, that's all,” I said, trying to lower her expectations, but I don’t think it was working.

“And he’s humble too,” Alira said in a semi-serious tone.

“The perfect nice guy to introduce to the parents,” she added with a smile that said, Got you now.

“Oh, so you’ve already thought about introducing me to your mother?” I smiled in return. “Did she like me in that imaginary meeting?” My smile was almost a grin now.

She stammered for a second but retorted, “You got along splendidly, maybe a bit too well if you know what I mean,” and chuckled.

“You did say she was running an estate; a guy could do worse than that,”

Malvina started laughing. “You guys are hilarious.”

“Him? I’d say more humble than hilarious,” laughter bubbling up.

“Didn’t you say I would have made a good jester?”

“I’ve never found jesters to be funny, so that should tell you something,” she said with a smug look on her face.

“I’ll have you know I would make the greatest jester of them all,” I said with mock bravado.

“Tell me one funny joke then,” she challenged.

I didn’t know that many jokes, but from my gamer days, I remembered one.

”Why don't Warriors enchant their weapons with intellect? Because they don't want their weapons to be smarter than them!”

I started laughing at my own joke, Malvina soon joined me, and Alira was trying hard not to smile.

“There isn’t even an enchantment for intellect on weapons,” she said while suppressing a smile.

"Exactly!" I grinned. "If there was, warriors would be running around with swords, giving them life advice and correcting their grammar."

She rolled her eyes, trying to hide her amusement. "Yeah, and the next thing you know, they'll be having deep philosophical debates with their axes."

"Hey, maybe that’s the real reason they keep swinging them—just trying to end the conversation!"

Malvina laughed while pressing ahead of us into the mists.

We walked slowly; there was no point in rushing or taking unnecessary risks—we couldn’t afford to be reckless. The air felt thick with tension, and our senses were on high alert, every creak and distant sound making Malvina flinch.

Alira motioned for me to take the lead, as I was probably the most durable.

It wasn’t long before the first signs of trouble appeared: a faint disturbance in the dust, the remnants of something dragged through the dirt. The scattered debris hinted at a struggle.

Out of the mists, the road was blocked by a crashed wagon, I wasn't a tracker but clearly a fight had taken place.

“There was a fight, obviously, and they went to the right,” Alira said after examining the crash. “There is still fresh blood, so it happened about an hour ago,” she continued.

“Then let’s follow the trail; we either help someone or find a basilisk. Win-win,” I said, starting to move where she pointed.

As we got closer to where the trail took us I could see five bodies and two basilisk corpses. Surprisingly, the corpses were mangled, not petrified. Advancing further, we found two people against a rock outcropping.

“Do you need any help?” Alira was the first to speak.

“My sister's been hurt, but she’s a healer,” he added. “We just need time for her leg to heal.”

He was tall, maybe a little taller than me, with a quiver on his back and the bow beside his sister. By the looks of the clothes, he took a lot of slashes but they were healed now. Where the clothes had been ripped, you could see his muscular frame.

“Do you think they will attack again?” Malvina spoke next.

This time the sister answered, “Yes, they attacked us twice.” She looked at her brother. “The first time we managed to repel them and killed one of the beasts,” her face took a sad look. “But the second time, they regrouped and came in with one big basilisk.” She looked too shaken to continue.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“We lost the rest of our party in the last attack, and we only took two monsters down, maybe injured the big one,” his tone was gentle as he consoled his sister. “It’s gonna be okay; we have a chance now.”

“How big was the basilisk you mentioned earlier?” Alira asked.

“About three times the size of the dead ones,” as he answered, he seemed to look at the fog as if he could see through it.

“They are preparing to attack,” he exclaimed, grabbing his bow from the ground.

He fired three arrows that disappeared into the fog. A few seconds later, five basilisks appeared from the fog. The larger one had three arrows lodged in its neck, but it seemed to bother him very little.

“I’ll charge at them to keep some range between us; focus on the little guys. I’ll take care of the big one,” I said as I started running towards them.

I say little guys, but they were the size of horses and they were closing fast. A few more arrows connected with a basilisk on the right of me, and it seemed to slow somewhat.

I stopped and fired a Lightning Bolt at the big basilisk, and it hit him, but its scales seemed either magic resistant or reflective, as it didn’t do too much damage, but at least he stopped.

I immediately fired another bolt at one of the little advancing basilisks, and to my complete surprise, it missed him. The snake-like build made for a small target, and their wobbling motion didn’t help. They were a few meters away now, and I had to duck to the side, but it connected with my leg and spun me in the air, and the landing was anything but smooth.

I recoiled fast expecting them to already beon me but to my surprise one snake seemed frozen, while another was clearly confused his eyes switching between me and his kin.

His hesitation cost it dearly as several arrows struck home, followed by a knife. The creature collapsed, and though it wasn’t dead, it appeared incapacitated.

The third snake came from behind me and coiled around me and stared at me with its eyes. The Mana Shield did its job to protect me from the crushing motion, and I didn’t feel any different looking into its white eyes.

Managing to get a hand free, I fired a bolt point-blank into its head, and the snake dropped to the ground.

Alira must have taken advantage of the frozen basilisk's obvious weakness and got behind him and killed him.

The remaining small one seemed to retreat to its big brother. Its eyes glowed yellow, and the fog seemed to be gathering. That seemed tactical. Were they intelligent? With the visibility dropping fast, I got back to the group.

“Can you see them?” I asked the Archer as the visibility was so bad I could not see 10 meters in front of me.

“It’s a magical fog. Before, I could maybe see an outline, but now, nothing,” his eyes scanned our surroundings as he responded.

“I think I can sense them if they get close enough,” Malvina responded as she closed her eyes and raised her hand in front of her.

Assuming she had bloodbended the frozen one, I said, “Just one second for the big snake, that's all I ask for.”

“One is coming from the left and one from the…” she didn’t get to finish as the big snake collided with us. I attempted to jump in front of it, but I was too slow. It only partially hit me and Alira as well, who was standing nearby.

It flung me into the fog, and I couldn’t see anyone. The visibility was even lower somehow.

I heard voices and rushed to them, but I ended up meeting with the Archer's sister. She seemed surprised. She scanned the fog as if she were tracking something.

“The big one is coming this way,” she said in a panicked but resolute tone, pointing to a direction. “Be ready.”

“Now!” she exclaimed, and choosing to believe her, I fired a Bolt just as its big ugly head was coming out of the fog. It hit him in the eye, and a tore off a portion of its head.

Because of its momentum, it fell over me, and its thrashing gave me a chance to fire a couple of bolts, and it finally stopped moving.

She approached tentatively to the basilisk and, turning to me, asked, “Are you okay?”

“Actually, no. My foot is stuck under,” trying to get free, but it was just too heavy.

She found a large wooden stick and used it as a lever, and I managed to free my foot.

As the fog began to lift, we spotted the others not far away, gathered around the body of another basilisk.

“Fuck!” I screamed as I tried putting some weight on my foot. My ankle was at minimum sprained.

“Clearly, your foot is wounded. I only have a healing spell, but it should help,” she said in a very melodic voice.

As she was casting the spell on my foot, I got a better look at her. Full lips, blue eyes, blond hair, she and her brother were like models.

“I’m Tiberius.”

“My name is Elara.” her hands were finished waving about my ankle.

“The pain should be manageable, but I wouldn’t run on it for a day or so,” she kept looking at me strangely, like she was trying to see through me.

“Do I have something on my face?” I made the classic gesture of checking my face for invisible things.

She immediately went a little red. “No, sorry. I was just surprised.”

“About what?” a quizzical look on my face.

“Nothing, really. Forget about it,” her tone went combative suddenly.

Alira and the others were coming our way. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yes, Elara here was finishing healing my ankle,” pointing towards it.

“As I said, I’m not really a healer, more like a combat medic,” her good disposition had returned. “He also had a small internal bleeding, but I stopped it.”

“That’s not that bad. Isn’t that where all the blood is supposed to be?” sometimes I crack myself up.

That got a good laugh, especially from Elara, while Alira rolled her eyes at my obviously un-original joke.

“My name is Erik,” we even shook hands and all while he got introduced to Alira and Malvina.

“Good to meet you, Erik,” Malvina said.

All through the evening, Elara kept throwing glances at me. At first, I was flattered, thought she liked me, but then it seemed more like she was curious than interested.

“So, I ask again, is there something on my face?” it was getting weird.

“I’m sorry, it's just you're different, and I can’t help but try to figure out why,” she seemed embarrassed.

“Different how?” I queried again, hoping she wouldn’t get defensive.

“I can’t tell you. It carries a certain stigma in some circles,” she looked to the ground, almost ashamed; clearly, it was something very important.

The way she sensed the beast and my immunity, plus the stigma, “Empath?” I whispered to her.

The surprise on her face was all the answer I needed, but seeing my response must have given her some courage as she asked, “You don’t have a problem with that?”

“I arrived on this world a little over a month ago, so no, no preconceived notions about empaths,” she seemed surprised again.

“That’s rare,” she managed to say after a pause.

“I may be a special case. The way you were looking, I’m assuming I’m either harder to read or..” I didn’t want to give too much away.

She immediately jumped at the opportunity, ”I can’t get anything from you. Usually, even without trying, I can sense emotions, sometimes even random thoughts,” again she looked down with shame.

“Since I’m not from this world, I got a spell that makes me immune to certain magical intrusions,” it was technically the truth.

“Truly?” her smile lit up her face like it was one of the best news she had heard in a long time.

“Try reading my thoughts.” Better test this now than have surprises later.

She gave me the same look, like she was trying to see through me, but in the end, she just got that smile again. “I can’t describe it. It’s like you're not here.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the same words used. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

She turned to her brother, who was discussing something with Alira, and exclaimed with the wonder of a child who has to tell somebody good news, “Tiberius has a skill that makes him immune to my empath powers.”

Malvina didn't seem to react that badly, but Alira had her hand on her sword. Déjà vu.

Elara understood her mistake excitement getting the better of her and had a horrified expresion, while her brother was caught between surprise and shock but still went for his dagger.

For a moment, I thought I was going to have to intervene, but Malvina exclaimed.

“I’m a necromancer!”

Poor Erik, he had like four different expressions on his face.